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Lin Hixson andMatthew Goulish

Every house has a door was formed in 2008 by Lin Hixson, director, and Matthew Goulish, dramaturge, to convene project-specific teams of specialists, including emerging as well as internationally recognized artists. Drawn to historically or critically neglected subjects, Every house creates performances in which the subject remains largely absented from the finished work. The performances distil and separate presentational elements into distinct modes – recitation, installation, movement, music – to grant each its own space and time, and inviting the viewer to assemble the parts in duration, after the fact of the performance, to rediscover the missing subject. Works include Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never. (2009) in response to the work of Yugoslavian filmmaker Dušan Makavejev, Testimonium (2013) a collaboration with the band Joan of Arc in response to Charles Reznikoff’s Testimony poems, and the on-going project 9 Beginnings based on local performance archives.

Matthew Goulish is dramaturge and occasional performer for Every house has a door which he co-founded in 2008 with Lin Hixson. His books include 39 Microlectures – in proximity of performance (Routledge, 2000), The Brightest Thing in the World – 3 lectures from The Institute of Failure (Green Lantern Press, 2012), and Work from Memory, in collaboration with the poet Dan Beachy-Quick (Ahsahta Press, 2012). He was awarded a Lannan Foundation Writers Residency in 2004. He received an honorary doctorate from Dartington College of Arts, University of Plymouth in 2007, and shared a Foundation for Contemporary Art fellowship with Hixson in 2014. His essays have appeared most recently in Art Journal, The Drama Review, and the books Support Networks, in the Chicago Social Practice History Series (School of the Art Institute of Chicago/University of Chicago Press, 2014), Performing Cities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), and Beckett and Musicality (Ashgate, 2014). He teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Lin Hixson is director of Every house has a door, a performance group she co-founded in 2008. She was director of the performance group Goat Island (1987 – 2009). She was awarded the United States Artists Ziporyn Fellowship in 2009, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts fellowship in 2014. She received an honorary doctorate from Dartington College of Arts, University of Plymouth in 2007. She has received fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Illinois Arts Council, and the Chicago Dancemakers’ Forum. Her writing has been published in the journals Poetry, The Drama Review, and Performance Research; and included in the anthologies Live – Art and Performance; Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in History; and (with her drawings) Manifesto Now!: Instructions for Performance, Philosophy, Politics. She is co-curator of performance at Chicago’s Sector 2337. She received her MFA in Studio Arts from Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design in 1980. She is Full Professor of Performance at The School of the Art Institute of Chi

Visiting Artist
| January 8-21, 2017

The Three Matadores

For their first MANCC residency, Lin Hixson (Director) and Matthew Goulish (Dramaturg) of Every house has a door worked to finalize their piece, The Three Matadores, in preparation for its March 11-12, 2017 premiere at the Logan Center, University of Chicago, as part of the OnEdge Festival. The work is inspired by a microplay, embedded in a book-length poem The Presentable Art of Reading Absence (Dalkey Archive Press, 2008) by American poet, Jay Wright. The Three Matadores micro-play, which has never before been staged, will constitute the second act of the two-act performance. The first act features solos by four artists that sets the stage for the second act, which brings the four together in the staging of Wright's play, a bilingual English and Spanish text whose choreography alternates between mathematical permutations and movements based on bullfighting.

While at MANCC, Hixson and Goulish examined bullfighting, specifically its structure and choreography as they relate to the work. Writer and performance philosopher, Will Daddario, who will contribute an essay to accompany the performance, continued his research. While in residence MANCC staff connected Goulish and Daddario with Dr. Neil Arditi, The Esther Raushenbush Chair of Literature at Sarah Lawrence College, to discuss the theme and context of Jay Wright’s work. In the second week of the residency, lighting designer, Michael Schnelling, joined the team to begin working on the scenic and technical elements of the performance. FSU School of Dance student, Ross Daniel (3rd year MFA), participated in the residency as a rehearsal assistant.

The residency culminated in an informal work-in-progress showing and discussion, attended by graduate and undergraduate students of the Schools of Dance and Theater, as well as faculty members from English, Modern Languages, and Theater departments.